I want to share a story about the first moment I understood and recognized my white privilege, and use it as a juxtaposition for what others deal with every day.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I would go to a nearby park and shoot hoops...

I still remember the first time I went, some people stared and pointed at me. It didn’t take me long to realize it was because I was the only white person in the park. It was an odd feeling. That experience was the first one that ever made me _realize_ I was white...

Later, I was telling a friend about this experience, explaining it was the first time my race mattered, and they corrected me:

Your race has always mattered. You just aren’t oppressed because of yours.

Hit me like a shit ton of bricks.

I have never looked at my race the same. I am white. I experience the world a certain way because of it. I fundamentally do not know what it’s like to experience the world as someone who isn’t white. It is a knowledge inaccessible to me.

This is why believing others is so important. It’s not about empathizing and sharing a feeling, it’s about recognizing you’ll never have that feeling and the experiences of others are valid and true regardless of our capacity to experience the same.

I had the fortune of not being aware of my race til my mid twenties. Do you think I’d have that luxury if I wasn’t white? If you’re white, do you realize what a privilege that is to be blissfully unaware of how your race impacts the world?

Having an extra mental process that is constantly calculating how your race is impacting a situation has to be incredibly exhausting; a burden I’ll never understand. That’s white privilege.

I don’t have a grand finale for this thread. I just hope my white friends recognize that their race has _always_ mattered, and not having to think about it constantly is an extraordinary privilege. Please, please start to understand that if you don’t already.